


Untitled

by crowleyshouseplant (orphan_account)



Category: Supernatural
Genre: F/F, Supernatural AU: Croatoan/End'verse, Transgender
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-31
Updated: 2012-03-31
Packaged: 2017-11-02 19:13:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,073
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/372386
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/crowleyshouseplant
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for Siterlas's prompt: She idolizes and clings to Risa at Camp Chitaqua.</p>
<p>Written for the <a href="http://spnfemslashexchange.dreamwidth.org/">SPN Femslash Exchange</a>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Untitled

Claire tramped her way through the Croatoan apocalypse in combat boots wielding a baseball bat. Its blonde gold wood was stained with brownish leftover blood that hadn’t washed out.

Daddy had always said he’d teach her to play ball—to bat and to pitch.

She still hadn’t learned that last bit but hey.

Dad had to be around somewhere, and she hadn’t learned shit in high school but she had taught herself fancy words in Latin strong enough to carve grace from flesh and send angels the fuck back home and how to say _yes_ in more languages than she had fingers to count.

She kicked her blankets—the ragged hem catching on the worn treads of her boots-- off from the cot Chuck had found for her in Camp Chitaqua. She had arrived last night, bat over her shoulder, skirt torn where she wore it over knee-patched denim with the torn cuffs.

It was the first bed she had slept in for months, for years. Hell, it was weird having blankets. Not having to sleep all bundled up in jackets or binding herself to the limbs of trees, way up high away from the hungry clutching rotten flesh of a croat, mouth open, lips moving up and down like it was trying to remember how to speak.

She squeezed her eyes shut, rolled out of bed, landed crouching easy and loose on the balls of her feet. She stretched, shoulder joints popping, as her eyes fell on the pile of clean laundry with a note pinned to the front: we boil the clothes every other weekend. Have some of Sarah’s in the meantime. ~ Becky

Claire grunted, shimmied out of her jeans, let the skirt drop to her ankles before toeing off her boots.  Her socks were more holes than cotton, but there was a new pair in the clothes Becky had stashed for her—along with thin cotton underwear thank god—metaphorically speaking--no more going commando. She stripped out of her shirt, paused to flex her arms until the muscles strung tight, curved and hard like the baseballs she had tossed in the air, cracking the bat against them, and sending them soaring into the dirt smudged windows of the abandoned house on fifth avenue until their panes were empty eyes staring from crumbling walls.

The thin paneled door of her hut slammed open, and she jumped, already lunging for her bat, when she saw that it was just a human that looked like she had been carved from flint.

“Hold it, kid.” Didn’t even bother to lunge for her, didn’t even bother to rebalance into a protective stance.

Maybe that’s why Claire said, “I’m not some kid.”

The person nodded, teeth clicking, one eye dropping into a scornful wink. “Yeah, okay. What’s your name?”

“You first,” Claire said. 

“Risa.” She lifted her arms, tugged her hair from the ponytail band until it fell into an unruly, snarled mane around her neck and shoulders. Her eyes flicked down, and Claire wondered if she was cataloguing her scars or following the trail of hair that crept from her naval. “You gonna get dressed?”

“When I’m good and ready to.” 

Risa tilted her head up, smirking without showing her teeth as she stripped, and Claire refused to turn away, even though she was flushing and she was getting hard under Risa’s stare because she wasn’t even bothering breaking eye contact, just looking at her in the eyes and Claire wondered if they were deeper than other eyes, more hollowed out from being filled and emptied by an angel, and she flinched away.

“I’ve seen eyes like yours,” Risa said, like she was some goddamned mind reader. “No need to hide them from me.”

“Yeah—where?” Claire jerked her head towards her, stared up at her under her long blonde hair.

“Demons,” and then Risa laughed, putting her wrist over her mouth to hide the smile, the flash of teeth. “We exorcise them, you know, when we can.” She pointed to her eye with her finger, still in her bra and cargo pants, shirt draped over her elbow. “Could always tell an ex-host by their eyes. Never want to eat anything again but demon smoke. Only thing they’ll open their mouths for.”

Claire bit her mouth closed, sharp teeth biting in the tender flesh of her lips. “So what do you open your mouth for,” she said as she slipped into the cotton underwear Becky had left from her. Sarah was a little smaller than Claire, so they were pulled snug and tight around her. She shimmied into the pair of jeans—they were soft from use, torn and stained, but comfortable and clean.

Risa sat on the edge of the bed, yanked up her laces from her boots before kicking them off. “Oh you know. Taters. Steak.” She laughed, then, “God do I remember a good steak. Mostly red, juice a bit bloody—rub herbs into the muscle, put cloves of garlic into the raw meat before barbequing--” licked her lips, eyes flicking down below the unsnapped button of Claire’s jeans. “Like to eat other things too.”

Claire flushed while Risa stretched out across the bed, limbs splayed everywhere, chest and legs and arms wide open.

Claire could see the faint definition of her ribs as she breathed in deep. 

Risa flung an elbow over her eyes then said, “Better go find our fearless leader so that he can put you to work. 

“Who’s he?”

But Risa was already asleep. 

When she stumbled out into the camp, she saw a man pushing a body onto an unlit pyre, bullet through the forehead, little dribble of blood seeping its way down pallid skin. Others helped him, but they looked up to him.  And then when he turned, looked back behind him, locked eyes on her, saw the way they widened and not even bothering trying to hide, she recognized him as Dean Winchester, and said, “Oh shit.” 

Found herself marching up to him, and saw that he gestured the other people away as she wrapped her fingers in his collar, standing on tip-toes to look into his eyes. “Where is he,” she hissed. 

“Who?” he said, his voice hard. 

She swallowed, gripped him tighter. “You know who.”

He laughed, sounds hard and brittle, shattering against her eardrums, then pushed her hands away. “You’ll find him over there.”

And she did. Daddy’s face that wasn’t really his face anymore in smoke, beads looped around his wrists, and eyes staring up into the ceiling. He turned his head, but she ducked out behind his beaded curtains, heart scudding against her rib cage as her hands scrabbled at her skin, trying to carve out empty again, because it wasn’t supposed to have been like this.

No Daddy there.

No angel either.

Claire staggered to her tiny, drafty room, Risa still sprawled out on the bed, but still awake, eyes at half mast, but getting wider as she saw Claire hitch air into her lungs.

“You okay? Aren’t you supposed to be out foraging for toilet paper or something.” 

Claire shook her head. “He’s gone,” she said.

“Everybody is. What else is new?” 

She shook her head. “It wasn’t like that. We were supposed to. I was supposed to.” 

She clenched her fists against her thigh, rubbed the knuckles in deep.  

Risa slid off the bed, hair mussed, pants half unzipped and the waistband slipping down her hips, the thin metal tongue of her belt clicking softly against her buckle like stuttered consonants and half uttered syllables, drawing close but not close enough. “You’re not supposed to do anything but survive.”

Claire pulled her in, pushed her against the wall, and Risa wasn’t smirking but her eyes were lingering around her groin and her lips and her adam’s apple. “I see that, you know,” Claire said, “I know what it means.” She dipped her head closer towards Risa. “Say yes.” She rested her forehead against the weathered wood behind them. “Please say yes.”

Risa held her breath, put her hands on her shoulders, thumbs resting on the delicate rise of her collarbones. Claire’s skin shivered beneath her, until Risa shoved her back, laughing. “No.” 

Claire frowned, fingers stiff, curled, the knuckles twinging with pain from the stress. “Is it because—“ 

“It’s because I said no.” Risa stretched out on the bed, rolled over, and shoved the ragged pillow over her head. “ Now go away. I need to sleep since I have first night watch. Make yourself useful around the camp.” 

So Risa fell asleep, and Claire left her there. Found Becky, whose hair was cropped short, shorter than Chuck’s, and she gave her a tour of the place, and Becky just stepped on Chuck’s foot when he mentioned that Sarah was probably going after some exercise in futility looking for someone named Bela when Claire asked about the owner of her previous garments. 

Becky started to apologize for the lack of private quarters when she told Claire that she would have to bunk up with Risa, who’d already said she didn’t give a shit, but Claire just said, “I don’t mind.”

“Good,” Becky said, “that’s so good.” And she smiled so big, and Claire found herself smiling back.

Claire veered away from his hut, her arms tired and sore from chopping wood for fires, knuckles dirty and scraped from working in their gardens. Risa was already up when Claire collapsed into bed, tying her hair back into a pony-tail.

Claire didn’t say anything, just flung her elbow over her eyes, and watched her through the empty spaces.

“You tired?”

Claire grunted.

“Got your boots on,” Risa said.

“Always sleep with them on. Safer that way. Don’t have to take the time to put them on if we’re attacked in the night.” 

“Your toes need to breathe.” Risa ‘s shadow fell over Claire’s torso, and she shivered. Then Risa leaned over, whispering in Claire’s ear. “Not even Dean Winchester sleeps with his boots on—at least not all the time.” The curve of her smile followed the shell of Claire’s ear. “And I would know.”

Claire swallowed. “What about—the other one. The ex angel.”

“Cas?” Risa straightened, tucked her shirt into her pants. “Hasn’t he been wandering barefoot in the desert for forty years?” She snorted. “But who really knows right?” She tucked a pistol against the small of her back. “You want me to take your boots off or not?” 

“Yeah, sure,” Claire said, then bit down on her tongue. Still, she held her foot out, flexing the ankle so Risa would have leverage to pull of her boot. Risa groaned, covered her nose with her hand. “This is why you gotta let them breathe.” 

“Sorry,” Claire said. “You gonna wake me up for tomorrow?” She dropped a wink.

“Yeah I’m gonna wake your ass up so that I can sleep on the bed, and don’t you even think about sleeping in.”

The door clicked closed and Claire finally took her arm away from her eyes, finally let herself see. The air pricked at her eyes, and she sucks in a sharp breath, swallows down hard. 

She tried to sleep but couldn’t, so she got up out of bed, found the bat leaning against the wall, shoved her bare feet into her boots without lacing them up. She went until she could see the blurred outline of Castiel’s hut—there was a soft glow, and smoke pressed up close against the windows.

Claire pawed the ground at her feet until her hand came across a stone. She tucked it in her palm, straightened, threw it in the air, and swung the bat against it. It went towards the house, but wide, missing and landing somewhere beyond.

She cracked stones against her bat until Risa found her on her patrol, until Risa wrestled the bat from her grip and told her to stop fooling around and go to sleep. “Let me go on patrol with you,” Claire said.

“Maybe tomorrow,” Risa said. “Go away.” Risa shoved her hard against her shoulders towards their hut.

And Claire did, but she didn’t take her boots off, and she stared up at the roof, counting planks and warped water marks, but didn’t look too hard to see if she could find faces in the wood like she had done as a girl, so that she wouldn’t have to close her eyes.


End file.
